7 Types of Data Breaches | Are you really secure?

Having your company's data breached is not good. It's a negative strike on reputation and bottom line. Unscrupulous individuals use malware, ransomware, and countless methods to breach your company's data and steal sensitive information, and cash in on it. They make careers out of developing different ways to compromise your data. Foreign governments devote resources in an attempt to breach systems for nefarious purposes. Once a breach occurs, it's a scrambled race of time, money, and stress to mitigation. Time to search for solutions. Where do you start? Understanding different types of data breaches is a good place.

In this article, we'll review 7 Different Types of Data Breaches use to exploit your systems. Being aware of these malicious attempts will help you start or adjust your organizations' security policies to stem the tide.

Data Breach Types

Password Attacks – are used to breach corporate or personal information. A hacker uses mechanisms to guess or acquire passwords. A high percentage of users who have poor or easily hacked passwords are the target. Password data found in known database lists sold from hacker to hacker. It's then easier to gain access to accounts with poorly designed passwords.
Malware Attacks – are used by cybercriminals to harm or exploit any programmable device, service, or network. Malicious software affects a large amount of data on compromised systems. News reports frequently show attacks on healthcare, banks, online apps, and more. Harmful computer programs wreak havoc to gain access to valued information.
Phishing and Spear Phishing – Phishing is a hacking method designed for users to click a web URL or web forms that spoof a brand. The purpose is to accumulate personal information and login authentication. Spear Phishing is a highly focused method and targets a single person. Usually, the hacker wants something specifically. (i.e. W2 information, direct deposit changes, requesting fraudulent wire transfers)
Eavesdrop Attacks – takes advantage of unsecured network communications to access data sent and received by a user. It's known as a sniffing attack. The stolen information transmitted over a network by a computer, smartphone, or other connected devices. The attacker monitors a weak connection between the client and the server to intercept data as its transmitted.
Cross-Site Scripting Attack (XSS) – is a client-side code injection attack. A hacker executes malicious code in a victim’s web browser. The attack occurs when a victim visits a web page or web-application that executes malicious code. The primary targets of this attack are web applications such as forums, message boards, and web pages that allow comments. The most used scripting language used for XSS is JavaScript.
Man-In-The-Middle Attack (MitM) - is when a hacker intercepts traffic between two parties. Either to secretly eavesdrop or modify traffic traveling between the two. Hackers use MitM attacks to steal login credentials or personal information, spy on the victim, sabotage communication, or corrupt data.
Denial-Of-Service and Distributed-Denial-Of Service Attacks – Denial-Of-Service DOSattacksfloods a network with artificial traffic to restrict access to users to the website, web apps, or web services being attacked. Distributed-Denial-Of Service attacks achieve effectiveness by using multiple compromise computers to perform the attack.

Consequences if you Don’t Act

With industry standards of web security always changing, organizations have to be diligent in staying current and up-to-date with their web security. It’s not if it’s going to happen, it's when. Being aware will help reduce the risk and help with faster mitigation when problems arise. These consequences can put your company out of business. So, what are some of the costs of a data breach?

Legal cost – a cybersecurity claim on average can cost $8600 in legal consultation fees. To respond to a claim can be as high as $73,300. (The Growing Legal Cost of Cyber Liability - DLD Lawyers)

Company reputation – Consumer trust is damaged causing a PR nightmare. Companies usually find the intrusion late and respond inadequately. Data breaches can be costly, embarrassing, and result in job losses and regulatory fines. (Business & Brand Reputation Loss Due To a Security Breach – shredit.com)

Time – It takes an average of 191 days to identify data breaches. The average time of a malware attack is 50 days. (2021 Cyber Security Statistics - purplesec.us)

How can we help?

NetX Information Systems can help you structure, build, upgrade, and prioritize your data security plan and policies. Our engineers use current real-world cybersecurity technologies in crafting systems architecture.

Give us a call to talk about it: 609-291-9118 or use our contact form.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we discussed 7 types of data breaches and the consequences of inaction. It is important to make cybersecurity a priority when it comes to your organization. Staying ahead of the curve will prevent your company from the risk and consequences.